Day 775 - You Are Telling Me To Do What?

A homily to be given on January 26, 2015, to the Urban Outreach Ministry, Chattanooga, TN

OT Reading: Jonah 3:1-10

NT Reading: Mark 1:14-20

You are telling me to do what?

You remember we talked about Mark relating to us about the mercy of the Gospel for the abused. We talked about the fact that the book is short and packed with immediate activity. Mark describes Jesus as a man on an urgent mission with little time to do it all - Or perhaps, a man who knows his end and is ready to get to the end of his task.

Today we have seven short verses. The passage begins, “The time is fulfilled...”  “Is fulfilled” are special words.  Mark does not say, “The time is nine o’clock,” or something like that. Mark is describing a divine activity, “The time is fulfilled...” “God has caused something to happen.”

The particular words really mean “God has made a permanent change in the world through Jesus Christ’s entry.” Paul calls the world of humanity, the world of flesh. Remember, it means every element of creation that forms our thoughts, values and senses. Mark is telling us God has permanently changed Paul’s world of flesh. What has happened? The Kingdom of God has emerged into this world of ours through Jesus and forever changed it, but not as a completed task. Jesus has put seeds into the world that when sprouted and mature will be the complete consummation when the world of flesh will no longer exist in the full emergence of the Kingdom of God.

      As an aside, Mark’s words have a striking similarity to Paul’s thinking. You may recall an earlier post about Paul’s view of the singular and permanent change caused by the presence of Jesus, the “Christ event.” Paul uses the image of a woman in childbirth to describe the entry of the Kingdom of God into the world. Paul says the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now. (Rom. 8:18-22, 2 Corinthians 5:2-4)

The man Jesus permanently changed the nature of our existence, changed all creation’s relationship to God in an irreversible and profound way. Paul understood that Jesus Christ’s entry established the foothold of the Kingdom of God. We all stand in the “in between time,” one foot in the old world and one foot in the new world. The seed has been planted and now we await its maturation as it grows and pushes aside and replaces the world of flesh.

Repentance is tied intimately into God’s change in God's relationship with the nature of all creation. One can say, as the writer of Jonah did when God relented and did not destroy Nineveh, God has changed his mind, the Lord has repented, turned around in his relationship with us. The opportunity before us beckons if we have the ears to hear, the eyes to see and the mind to understand that he has decreed the death of the old world has been initiated now.

The idea of permanent change in Mark’s passage can be appreciated by analogy to what scientists have discovered about the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. They have discovered the water has intruded between the earth and bottom of the glaciers of the ice sheet to the point that they are beginning to lift, or float as they slide into the sea. Enough ice has melted from intrusion of warm water underneath the glaciers to cause them inevitably to slide fully into the sea and melt, raising global sea level as much as 10-13 feet in the next 200-1,000 years. The change has occurred and the consequence cannot be stopped. 

Lest you think I read too much into this passage in Mark, lets look at the rest of the verses, Mark 1:16-20.

Jesus encounters and commands two Greek fellows to follow him. It is clear they are not Hebrews because they have Greek names, Simon and Andrew. It is not unusual that one might encounter Greeks in Palestine, the influence of Greece was great, and also there were many Jewish communities that grew out of the Diaspora, but they were Greeks not Hebrews.

Mark is also telling us that unlike the schools where students come to be taught by the Rabbi, this “Rabbi” is calling his students to him. (Remember Jesus says in the Gospel of John 6:28-44, “No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day.” and 6:66-71, v64-65: “ 'But among you there are some who do not believe.' For Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that did not believe, and who was the one that would betray him. And he said, ‘For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.’ ”)

Then Jesus encounters two Hebrew fishermen James and John and calls them to him to do his bidding. They drop everything and even abandon their father to the boat and fish to follow Jesus bidding.

       Although our historical prejudice convinces us being a fisherman was a lowly, poorly paid occupation, History points out that Caesar owned the sea of Gallilee and its fish and it cost a pretty fee to fish in it. These fishermen were most likely engaged in a profitable venture. I repeat, they drop everything including their father's profitable venture to follow Jesus’ bidding. 
       Again we have this sense of turning around from one's former life. In seven terse verses,  Mark restates this Good News again, giving the message a sense of urgency.

   To me these verses do recall the story of Jonah and Nineveh. Nineveh, was a city whose evil was an insult to the Lord, perhaps it is an allegorical reference to the state Israel (and all creation?) had sunk in the time of Jesus. God ordered Jonah to travel to Nineveh and proclaim its destruction because of its evil. But a strange thing happened after the King of Nineveh and the people heard Jonah’s message. Jonah's prophesy ended up being “good news” for its positive effect.  The people of Nineveh repented, turned from their evil ways and God changed his mind and relented. (Never let anyone tell you God does not change his mind.) God spared Nineveh because they turned around.

 God has reconciled creation through the entry of Jesus into the world. The world can never be the same again. The wheels are in motion.

Mark speaks the message of Jesus here to the abused, the hopeless and downtrodden who see, hear and understand the Good News. Mark speaks to those who are ready to turn back from their foolish ways and follow the teacher who demands, “follow me.”

Amen.